WARHAMMER 40,000: SPACE MARINE 2

“What is your life?”. “My honour is my life”. “What is your fate?”. “My duty is my fate”. “What is your fear?”. “My fear is to fail”. “What is your reward?”. “My salvation is my reward”. “What is your craft?”. “My craft is death”. “What is your pledge?”. “My pledge is eternal service”. The Ultramarines Oath that the protagonist Titus takes and with which the campaign actually begins gives the player all he needs to get in the spirit of the game: Welcome to the grim and dark world of Warhammer 40K, only fire, blood and death await you.

Warhammer 40000: Space Marine 2 is a nostalgic game in many ways. First of all in its whole style, as the macho testosterone-filled, all-slaughtering, all-killing protagonist has receded in recent years in favor of more complex characters with deep feelings and weaknesses. Secondly with the overall package, offering a linear campaign and separate co-op and PvP multiplayer modes as was all too common in games of the 2000s. And thirdly, with the developers' total commitment to depicting the original material as best and most faithfully as possible, in an era when creators of all kinds like to mangle classics in the name of creative freedom. This is why Space Marine 2, while initially seeming a bit old-fashioned, is actually a breath of fresh air that gaming needed in my opinion.

In case you haven't played the first Space Marine, Titus ended that campaign in the hands of the Inquisition on a charge of possible corruption. The second game finds him initially in the service of Deathwatch, an elite corps that takes on the most dangerous missions in the Imperium, but he's quickly given a second chance to prove that he remains pure and true to the ideals of the space marines. What follows is an 8-10 hour odyssey during which Titus and his team must slaughter thousands of xenos and heretics to defend the interests of the Imperium and bring glory to the name of the Emperor. The campaign, although simple in structure with linear levels and big boss fights or horde attacks at key points, is nevertheless very entertaining and even impressive in the final levels, with an incredible on-screen mayhem straight out of the dreams of Warhammer 40K universe fanatics. Even if you're not one of them I think it's unlikely that you won't enjoy it as action and atmosphere are offered in spades. It's also worth noting that the campaign can be played in co-op with two other people, an option that is undoubtedly recommended if you intend to play on difficulty levels above normal.

The co-op mode includes six (for now) missions that take place alongside the campaign timeline wise. At certain points in the plot,Titus will assign other teams of space marines to additional critical objectives and their adventures can be experienced first-hand through the co-op mode. Of course it is not necessary to play with other players, there is also the option of bots, however I can say that the experience was more fun with humans. Both co-op and PvP which we'll get to in a moment have their own progression system through which you unlock weapon and character perks as well as various cosmetics. Performing missions at higher difficulty levels naturally requires your character to be at a correspondingly high level in order to cope with the significantly increased challenge. In co-op and PvP there are six different classes to choose from and upgrade, with quite substantial differences in gameplay.

We conclude the analysis of the available modes in Space Marine 2 with the PvP which is the less interesting of the package in terms of content since only three maps are provided which are not particularly impressive in terms of quality. It's obvious that this mode was not the focus of the developers' attention, but that doesn't mean that it's completely unnecessary as you can get a few hours upgrading your favorite class. One thing to point out regarding the co-op and PvP modes is that at least during the launch period the game's servers were quite unstable and I was faced with instances where I couldn't connect to a server or had disconnections during gameplay. At the time of writing this review and after several days of patches and fixes the situation is clearly improved. In terms of multiplayer endurance, the developers have announced an extensive support plan for the game with new content which includes free new maps, enemies and other additions. The game seems to have been a significant commercial success so it is likely that support will be available for a long time to come.

Moving on to the gameplay, in the two main modes of the game (campaign and co-op) your main occupation will be slaying the hordes the computer unleashes against you. The missions include several individual objectives that mostly have to do with killing all enemies, defending an area or facility, destroying targets and of course successfully completing boss fights. The combat system allows for a combination of melee and ranged attacks using a variety of weapons with different characteristics so you can find the style that suits you best, although some weapons are better suited to specific missions. For example, a mission I had to repeat 3-4 times armed with a bolt rifle was much simpler when I switched to a melta rifle. If you find that you are stuck in a particular encounter it's worth experimenting with different equipment.

As for the action, how best to describe it in one word... Fantastic! Although the combat system is not particularly deep in terms of its mechanics since ranged weapons usually have only one firing mode and melee weapons allow you to perform some simplistic combos, the amount of enemies attacking you at any given moment is such that you have to exploit every last detail of the available arsenal in order to survive. For example, executions (brutal finishing moves on enemies you've disabled) initially seem like mere visual treats, but it quickly becomes apparent that they're crucial because they provide a) a few seconds of invulnerability and b) revitalization of your armor. So when you're in the midst of a sea of enemies, blood is flowing, you're down to a trickle of health and you find yourself with a chance for an execution, those few seconds of respite and that extra bit of armor can make the difference between a painful defeat and a marginal but absolutely epic triumph!

After playing for many hours and learning some hard lessons through humiliating defeats, I found that the key to Space Marine 2's gameplay is discovering the right rhythm between melee, ranged, grenades, abilities, etc. that suits the situation. On the lower difficulty levels you will manage to reach victory even with non-optimized tactics, but from a certain point onwards a thorough knowledge of your abilities and those of the enemies is required, as well as high-level execution to emerge victorious from the sea of enemy units that fill the screen. I must admit that at first I was negatively surprised by the fact that the space marines are relatively fragile, in the sense that multiple enemy attacks drain armor and health very quickly, however as I progressed I understood the point behind it. The developers want to push the player to find the ideal balance between defense, offense and tactics and when they do they will reap the fruits of their success. When the whole thing clicks and you get into the swing of things, when all the information comes together in your head and becomes instinct, when you're in the middle of the enemy horde sawing through enemies, performing executions as soon as they present themselves, throwing grenades into crowds and activating abilities while dancing among a mountain of corpses in an unprecedented blood ballet, at that exact moment you feel like the biggest badass in the universe.

As you might have guessed from the context, I really enjoyed Warhammer 40000: Space Marine 2. In my opinion, the campaign has the perfect length for the kind of gameplay it offers to keep you interested until the end without causing fatigue, and the addictiveness of the combat is a strong incentive to keep the player engaged in the co-op mode for a long time. PvP left me a bit more "cold" because it's not as interesting as the other modes. There is no question that I recommend buying it to fans of Warhammer and action games in general, however the timing of the purchase is up for debate because it depends on the type of player you are. Specifically: If you intend to tackle at least two of the three available modes, complete them on multiple difficulty levels and move up the progression system then go ahead and purchase even at full price, the game is worth the money. However if your interest is focused on only one of the modes, e.g. only the campaign to play it as a singleplayer game, only co-op because you like Left4Dead or only PvP because those are the games you play, then I think you should wait for a discount because the market has specialized titles in each of those genres with better value for money. As a complete package though and as a game in general Warhammer 40000: Space Marine 2 brings the series back to the forefront in an impressive way.

Thanks to AVE for providing us with review code.

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